This invention relates to gathering device discovery information.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (xe2x80x9cIEEExe2x80x9d) standard 1394-1395 (published Jun. 16, 1995) defines a high-speed serial bus (xe2x80x9c1394 busxe2x80x9d) that can transfer data among consumer electronic devices, personal computers (xe2x80x9cPCsxe2x80x9d), and peripheral devices such as monitors, keyboards, printers, scanners.
When devices are added to and removed from an active 1394 bus, the bus will automatically reconfigure itself to accommodate the changes. To facilitate reconfiguration (and other interactions among the devices), each device stores discovery information comprised of a unique identifier and information identifying services available from the device. The information is useful to other devices in making use of the services.
In one embodiment, the invention is a method for use on a bus that supports broadcast discovery. According to the method, identification information is received from a device on the bus and discovery information is obtained from the device using the identification information. The discovery information is then broadcast on the bus.